You Were Right for Thinking Shenmue 3 Wasn’t Releasing in 2018

Deep Silver has confirmed that Shenmue 3 is being pushed back to 2019. A few months back the publisher seemed adamant that the game would make it out in time for 2018; but footage from the game suggested otherwise. Thankfully this official confirmation will keep the thousands of Kickstarter backers from being mislead on the release window.

Shenmue 3‘s developer said the following about the delay: “the extra time will be used to polish the quality of the game even further, to the high standards it deserves and release the product in the best possible timeframe.”

Hopefully, by the time we see Shenmue 3 again, the game will be in much better shape than we saw previously. The art style had seemed pretty good, and consistent with the previous games. It was the animations that had many questioning the quality of the game.

A developer update that came months later, suggested that the team took these criticism on board and started improving the animations immensely.

I’m sure many will be frustrated with this further delay, but I for one think it’s a good idea to continue perfecting this game. Highly publicized Kickstarter games run the risk of letting down backers. So any extra time that can be used to deliver the best quality game is a positive, in my eyes.
Let us know your thoughts on the further delay of Shenmue 3 in the comments!

Share this:

Gary A. Swaby Co-founder/UK Managing Editor Gary Swaby is a co-founder of The Koalition. He enjoys video games, reading and comic book movies. Being part of The Koalition is his proudest accomplishment. "There's nothing like having a platform to express your love for the art of video games," says Gary.